Many popular food products such as ice cream bars, corny dogs, etc., are marketed with an outward projecting stick whereby the item can be individually hand held and oriented while being eaten without directly handling the food item per se. For minimizing costs associated with producing food products of that type they are by and large mass produced with the use of increasingly automated equipment for maximizing the elimination of hand labor. One important aspect of the production process has been the insertion of the holder stick into the food item itself. In my U.S. Pat. No. 3,691,608 there is disclosed a semi-automatic feeding apparatus for inserting sticks of circular cross section into food articles. In my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,069,960 there is disclosed semi-automatic apparatus for inserting flat sticks into food articles. Associated with the latter is a hopper box in which sticks are initially placed to provide the source from which the sticks are to be dispensed for insertion into the food article. Characterizing operability of the hopper box and feed mechanism thereof is a requirement for a prestacking alignment of the stick supply. While that device has now served the industry well for many years, it has been recognized as desirable to further reduce operating costs by increased automation via eliminating the previous preliminary step of stick stacking.
Despite recognition of the problem a solution therefor has not been previously known.